March 3, 2008 - Cause for optimism?

Tim Darnell

March 3, 2008

Georgia-Pacific's acquisition by Koch Industries couldn't have come at a worse time for Atlanta's fragile corporate psyche, the timeline of which is explored in my cover profile this month on G-P's new CEO and president. But Jim Hannan – and other recently anointed leaders of Atlanta companies, like AT&T's Sylvia Anderson, Scott Davis of UPS and others – may provide the best hope for this city's future.

Because, Heaven knows, what we're doing now isn't working. Indeed, our same tired old methods for solving this city's problems now threaten to send this metropolis into irrelevant oblivion.

We can brag all we want about Atlanta being the economic engine driving the Southeast. Civic leaders can pound their chests till their torsos are black and blue at the massive amounts of people and cargo that move through Hartsfield-Jackson. Millions of trees can fall to produce report after report about how Atlanta is the choice destination for the young and the restless (or the elderly and content, or whatever demographic happens to be hot in marketing and HR lexicons).

And infrastructure officials can spin till their consciousnesses are dizzy about how traffic is, after all, a positive indication that we're growing, growing, growing (don't forget to high-five your gridlocked neighbor on Ga. 400 tonight).

Sure, we're growing. We're growing so fast now we're going to annex the natural resources of a neighboring state to fuel our insatiable thirst. We're growing so much we want to steal money from the youths of our city to pay for the next big thing.

We're growing into the picture-perfect image of what NOT to become ... as if we haven't been there for some time already.

Just as went to press, two pieces of news broke, both of which harbor their own brands of absurdity. Now, irrationality is common in Atlanta for the first three months of each year, when the General Assembly is in session. But now some state lawmakers propose – seriously propose – redrawing the Georgia-Tennessee border so we can get our parched, dry hands on the Tennessee River.

It would be funny if this didn't seem to be a thoroughly researched effort to solve our water shortage. I guess it wasn't enough to enrage Florida and Alabama over the issue of watershed management. Now, Tennesseans are cocking their flintlocks in anticipation of a border war. (Carolina leaders might want to consider an RFP for a fence.)

The other news came a day before we shipped to the printer. Mayor Shirley Franklin and other city leaders – desperate to find some form of funding the Beltline – wanted to grab a share of school property taxes (some $850 million over the next 25 years) to pay for the development. Thankfully, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously threw that plan into the judicial trash heap where it belongs.

Franklin called the ruling "unanticipated" and "unexpected." What could be less far-fetched than actually using school property taxes ... for schools?

Watch out, though. That $2.8-billion price tag is going to have to come from somewhere, and who knows what legitimate form of revenue could be next in municipal crosshairs.

Obviously, some incredibly high level of disconnect between the public and private sector must exist for such explorations into illogicality to occur. But hopefully Hannan, Davis and others will step into the legacies of leaders like Duane Ackerman and Pete Correll. Hannan himself settled his family here over the span of mere weeks, and was involved in numerous civic activities before his first year in Atlanta was over.

And I'm gratified to see Correll playing a role at Grady; the outcry from those opposing his involvement only strengthens my conviction that he's right for the job.

So let's hope the new brand of leadership personified by Hannan and his kin can bridge the gap between our public and private sectors, and prevent Atlanta from becoming more of a tragic punch line than it already is.